Push and Pull
by tifaxfinalxheaven
Summary: Within the push and pull of power and authority, many things once deemed "good" disappeared beneath the tumultuous waves. Gone. Lost. It was a war; casualties were to be expected. RalphSimonJack.


**Title**: Push and Pull  
><strong>Rating<strong>: T, for dark content, etc.  
><strong>Pairing(s)<strong>: Ralph/Simon, Jack/Simon, implied one-sided Roger/Jack, others  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Within the push and pull of power and authority, many things once deemed "good" disappeared beneath the tumultuous waves. Gone. Lost. It was a war; casualties were to be expected.

* * *

><p><em>Prologue<em>

The sky was grim overhead and filled with the billowy dark of smoke. The shroud, thick and turbulent, obscured the hot bronze afternoon sunlight and cast shadows over the island and its young, disillusioned company. At the heart of the islet, torrid flames consumed verdant foliage with an insatiable gluttony, scarlet bodies engorged and ever extending toward the condemning heavens, licking at the dusky vapors above, bounding desperately from the mass of heat only to exhaust their ephemeral lives in the process, stopping, burning, and dying in the suffocating atmosphere of mayhem and finality.

The destruction was not silent. From the shore, the thickets could be heard crackling and screaming and mourning the loss of flora and fauna. The loud popping noises of dry wood overtaken by fire filled the innumerable pairs of ears, newly awakened with the promise of the old life. They listened with tender reluctance to the corollaries of unbridled savagery and felt the shame permeate their earthy hides. Each decibel of obliteration was deafening, ringing in hazy brains like gunshots, like foreign assaults on impressionable psyches.

From the interior of the throng, Ralph swayed on his feet, the scorching sand beneath his soles irritating the wide variety of cuts and scratches covering his filthy, calloused skin. Strange how he noticed just now, after rescue had been secured and the immediate threat of danger had been dismissed. It seemed only minutes ago, as he had madly bolted through the creepers and coverts and chaos, that the pain had been negligible, hurriedly pressed to the far corners of his mind as he scrambled to escape the painted, howling devils who trailed him like would-be hunters after prey. But now, as visceral aches and stings manifested themselves in places Ralph was not aware of, the sensations bombarded him with a vigor that he bitterly noted would have made Jack proud.

Hidden behind a screen of hair rinsed only with sweat, the gray of his eyes were dull with undesired wisdom, aged and bleak as they ghosted over the massive cruiser moored on the beach, then to the rest of the grimy faces surrounding him.

Most of the biguns had ceased their unabashed displays of self-pity and presently commiserated with each other; Samneric acted as mirrors as they traced their smeared clay masks with trembling fingers; Bill and Harold shared a moment of scrutiny as the realization of what they were capable of sank in at a painful crawl; and Robert glanced pityingly at his friend, who stood a dejected husk of the broad, smiling boy named Maurice.

It was too soon to look at the ones who had orchestrated the whole affair, Ralph decided, feeling a quivering spasm of anxiety ravage his weary frame at the mere thought, and skipped over the sight of a certain red-headed tyrant and his depraved second-in-command. He sucked in a breath, endeavoring to ignore the dual-ended spear in the latter's hands, to ignore how it was still brandished with purpose, and approached one of the supervising officers who had emerged from the cruiser.

Ralph's face, cleanest of the bunch, was unevenly streaked with dirt and blood. Slivers of sun burnt flesh peeked out from where the irrepressible tears had washed his cheeks with brine. The salt on his skin had not been dry for long, but the time for lamenting had ended, and despite the wounds in his pride yet fresh from their vicious mutiny, Ralph clung to his duties as chief among the others, driven by the lingering need to protect and govern. He peered up at the uniformed adult.

"Excuse me, sir." His voice was hoarse, throat taut and dry with the dregs of emotion.

"What is it, son?" The question was a mandatory reply, devoid of the solace that only a grown-up could provide. Regardless, the officer took an accommodating knee on the sand and met Ralph's swollen eyes with his own. He made a quiet sound of disapproval with his tongue.

Ralph, unfazed, searched the man's stare for any betraying signs of concern. When he found none, he spoke again:

"Is it possible for us to wait inside the ship?"

"Beg your pardon?"

"The ship. Can't we wait in there while your admiral goes about his search? It's too hot out here, what with the fire and all."

The officer's brow knit beneath the shade of his cap's brim, a multitude of lines surfacing in his skin as the rest of his face openly reflected contemplation.

"I would have to take that matter up with my superior officers."

"Then do it."

"I cannot." The officer shook his head mechanically. "All of them are on the expedition to find the remaining boys."

Ralph bristled. The man's brazen indifference tried what meager patience he retained, the majority of it having been depleted while both chief and quarry.

"Then who is in charge here?"

"Technically speaking, son, I am."

"Then won't _you_ make a decision?"

"I will not." The officer was adamant, detached and impervious to Ralph's sentimental request. "Not now, in any case. Not when my superiors are absent."

"But there's others around!" Ralph huffed, gesturing pointedly at several uniformed figures scattered about the outskirts of the beach. "They may not be high-standing, but they're still there."

"So they may stay there." He stated with martial curtness. "And I shall stay here, as will you and your friends."

The rejection of action and responsibility robbed Ralph of his previous forbearance, thrusting him from his delicate perch on the edge of tolerance into sudden indignation. Blood was boiling in his cheeks, seething in the tips of his ears.

A growl spilled over his wind-chapped lips, low, stricken, and guttural. "Some _bloody_ good you are."

Never had there been a dearth in leadership on the island. _Good _leadership, perhaps, but within the push and pull of power and authority, many things once deemed "good" disappeared beneath the tumultuous waves. Gone. Lost.

But casualties were a commonplace in all wars, his father had said once. They were to be expected.

Ralph's attention was brought to the word perpetually branding his palate. The same word that had been ruthlessly scratched into his corneas with claws and fangs and crudely fashioned spears, that swathed the backs of his eyelids like the heavy, brooding storm clouds of that awful night. It dominated him, sedated him.

Constrained by a simple mantra - a _memory_ - the boy with fair hair glowered into the perfect expression of shock and bewilderment, balled his quivering hands into fists at his sides, and stalked off.

After all, _Simon _never did like conflict.

* * *

><p>"Ralph, we're just so-"<p>

"-so sorry. You see-"

"-we were so afraid-"

"-very afraid-"

"-that they-"

"-Roger and Jack-"

"-yes, that Roger and Jack would hurt us."

"They were so horrible, really!"

"And terrifying!"

"Yes, quite terrifying!"

"Oh, Ralph, please-"

"-_please_ accept our apology."

"We didn't mean any harm."

"_Honest_."

The antiphonal speech didn't so much as merit a squint from Ralph. He sat on the beach, unaffected, with his back to his subjects, interest invested solely on the feeling of the waves gently lapping at his toes. The tepid Pacific waters soothed his raw skin with a tenderness that he had so often taken for granted back in England.

Scanning the horizon, he saw images dance off of the glassy tides, spinning and whizzing and blurring past recognition with a fervor he envied. Beguiled, Ralph followed a single scene with rapt concentration, lazily brushing his bangs out of his sight to watch the enchantment in its entirety. To the far right, there was a lovely woman with flaxen hair and a kind, smiling face who tended to dinner. Her cheeks were rosy, dainty hands adorned with mittens of violet.

With a marginal lift of the chin, Ralph could almost feel the scent of roast lamb and rosemary potatoes filling his nostrils, inciting a slight murmur from his stomach. As she went about her task, the woman's mouth was spirited in mime, her silence drowned out by oceanic notes. Fondly, he imagined she was cooing about his father, or his favorite pony, or how the weather over the weekend would be perfect for a picnic lunch out on the moor.

Heavens above, he missed his mother.

Ralph's heart ached for a familiarity and closeness that was worlds away, yet the promise of return did little to console him. The road to recovery was defective with cynicism and guilt, hindering him like tar, clinging to him with an indomitable weight. He was stuck and steadily descending into a pit from which another uncanny rescue seemed unlikely.

"Ralph?"

One of the twins touched his shoulder, a tentative pat that consisted mainly of fingertips. Ralph felt his body act of its own accord, growing rigid in response.

"Would you have done it?" His voice sounded strange to all of them, so uncharacteristically empty of inflection, of emotion.

"Done-"

"-what?"

"Killed me." His voice wavered, despite himself. "Would you have done it?"

There was an uncomfortable hush that fell over the trio, blanketing them with a tacit agreement that fear was a chillingly effective method of control.

Plagued by a fatigue that had left his muscles and navigated inward, Ralph rose to his feet but remained facing the open, glittering waters. For a minute, the twins squirmed in the unnerving quiet. Their heads were bowed, chins nearly pressed to their clavicles. Trepidation prevented the duo from clearly studying their ex-chief, lest they exacerbate his temper; neither wished to greaten the rift between themselves and the one who had foolishly relied on turncoats.

Then, miraculously, custom directed Ralph's tongue. "You're forgiven."

The identical faces simultaneously brightened underneath the veneer of pigmented smut. The display, however, went unnoticed by Ralph. He returned to his thoughts and musings without another word.

Or, at least, he tried to.

A great uproar sounded from the shore stretching left. The urgent shouts of frantic men broke like thunder over the beach, stealing the attention of everyone within earshot. Ralph was no exception. His eyes narrowed, seeing the procession of liveried adults flanked by the littluns that had been, until a day ago, under his care. The lot of them were disoriented and confused and yet strangely relieved, or so Ralph gathered, picking up their strange mix of whimpers and exultations.

"What's this?" He heard from a little ways behind him. The demand in the boy's voice was typical Jack. Typical, bloody, sodding _Jack_. Ralph felt the stubs of his dilapidated fingernails press into his palms, bruising the skin, failing to pierce the calluses spoiling his tremulous hands. The bulk of his pain was rather like this, really. Dull, disfiguring. Untreatable.

It was with a peculiar melancholy that Ralph realized, when he returned home, his mother would be incapable of cleaning and dressing these wounds, that if she even tried touch upon them, he might nearly cry. She could only watch, helplessly, as the welts turned a vile array of colors, into polluted shades of the oriental plums and the valley oaks when the autumnal palette swept over the moor, and Ralph would act as if everything were normal and as it ought to be. He would pretend the awful contusions weren't there, that they weren't haunting him like a tanned martyr with bright eyes and a rotund sage in equally round specs.

"I dunno, Chief." Roger, this time. The bile was rising quickly in Ralph's throat with each passing second; he almost lost it when the unmistakably warped jest slipped into the hangman's voice. "Perhaps they've found a body."

"Don't be stupid." To Ralph's vaguest delight, Jack sounded apprehensive, his words holding as much weight as a sheet of paper would hold water. He made a queer display of clearing his throat before continuing, "I do believe we all saw Piggy disappear under the sea foam."

It took only a moment for his voice to relegate into a note of which he could not control the vibrato, a frantic, terrible mess bound together by a faltering drive to uphold some semblances of composure. Despite his best efforts, Jack's speech was reduced to a proud mumble.

"He probably sank to the bottom of the ocean, you know."

"Then Simo-"

Ralph spun on his heel, twisting his neck to glare rancorous daggers at Roger. How _dare_ he mention Simon? Like Piggy wasn't enough?

As if on cue, the guilt sank into Ralph's gut for not defending his fallen companion earlier when he had the chance, his indifference and neutrality an admittedly unfortunate practice that had resulted in a loss of many things, but they would not defile Simon's name. Ralph would see to that personally.

The sand roughed his worn feet as made to face his opposition, a gloomy-faced atrocity and red-haired devil, nattering amongst themselves. Ralph's lips parted, a truculent remark looming on his swollen tongue.

Jack, however, beat him to the punch with a freckled visage crumpled in ugly, unabashed scorn.

"Shut up." He spat, eyes flicking over to Ralph for a split-second before returning to Roger, narrowed vindictively. The hangman recoiled from the retort as if Jack had effectively cuffed him, his scandalized expression one of disbelief and, after a moment, bemused submission.

"Yes, Chief." Roger yielded, lowering his head an inch and fiddling with the spear in his hands, knuckles quickly paling as his grasp tightened violently. His shame was palpable.

"And stop calling me that." Jack added, though belatedly, begrudgingly. The storm had subsided in his bolting blue eyes, but Ralph was hesitant to believe that the mad sparks lingering in Jack's stare were completely innocuous, if at all.

"But you _are_ the Chief."

"Chief? Chief of what, exactly? You?"

There was silence as Roger had nothing more to contest, mouth drawing into a line of aggrieved tension. Jack snorted derisively.

"I'm not in charge anymore."

* * *

><p>The body was mangled, to say the least. An arm twisted unnaturally here, a leg bent grotesquely at the shin there. Countless scarlet crescents of nail and bite marks screamed out against the figure's pallid hide, relaying the story Jack had been so fervently trying to extirpate from the dark recesses of his mind for the last few nights.<p>

He looked so small when nestled so carefully in the arms of the concerned adults like that. So small, so fragile. God, had he always been so slight? Recollecting was harder than Jack expected, more painful, but he could faintly remember telling Ralph on that first, fateful day in the jungle that they could talk over the dark-haired boy's head because he was so short, so meager.

Not that Jack ever noticed before, truth be told.

Simon might have been one of his choirboys, but he was always throwing fits the day of performances, and Jack was quite prudent enough to know giving him a substantial part in the ensemble was a bad move unless he _wanted _one of the only alto-sopranos singing the descant fainting half-way through the set.

Suffice to say, Jack had never regarded Simon as anything but expendable.

That was, until he had drifted out into the lagoon, limp and unmoving.

"Chi-" Roger cleared his throat. "Jack?"

"Hm?"

"You haven't touched your food."

"I should hope not," Jack pulled his attention from the bland potato and ham mash in front of him and shot his only friend an aggravated moue. "It looks positively rancid."

The battle cruiser's galley was undoubtedly cramped for twenty or so schoolboys, but Jack and Roger had managed to claim a table for themselves in the far corner of the room. It was worn and rough and Jack was certain he'd just gotten a splinter, but it was the only comfort he could find when the world he'd come to thrive in had been so suddenly and unjustly ripped from his hands and flipped upside down.

There was a griping emptiness festering in the pit of his stomach, curling tight and sinking deeper and deeper, and all the while, Jack couldn't stop replaying the moment wherein the men had stormed the ramp into the ship, carrying Simon - Simon, Simon, _Simon_, the one who they had murdered, killed, maimed, stabbed, ripped, bit, clawed, and sacrificed like an _animal_.

These men, however, these hypocritical adults, they toted Simon about like a _babe_.

In their clamorous frenzy, the men had been shouting, shouting for help, for assistance and bandages and water because the boy was _dying_ and _nothing was enough_.

But nights ago at the feast, the tribe had been chanting, chanting _kill the beast_ and _cut his throat_ and _spill his blood _because it was still _alive_ and _they were so close_ that he could almost _taste _it.

And just an hour earlier, Jack had trembled on the shore, watching with his mouth slack and eyes painfully wide, because he'd never believed in ghosts or karma or anything obscenely superstitious - aside from the beast, that was, and they'd taken care of him right proper, hadn't they? - but there was Simon, broken and just barely back from the dead.

Oddly enough, Jack had never felt so haunted in his life.


End file.
